After Arsenal’s brilliant third goal against Fulham, which was football team play at it’s finest, the fans continually sang “We have got our Arsenal back!”, but certain pundits are thinking we are being a little premature. We may have notched up nine wins in a row, but they have hardly been against any top teams. Craig Bellamy, for one, thinks the Arsenal fans could be expecting too much just yet. He said: “Arsenal were brilliant under George Graham, then Arsene Wenger took them onto another level. But because the last few years haven’t been as good, they [Arsenal fans] think they’ve got their club back? I don’t get it.
“I’ve not understood Arsenal fans for the last three or four years. Arsenal are an unbelievable football club. They’ve always had a certain class about them, incredible, the marble everywhere at Highbury, there was a certain standard about that football club.
“The fans were always switched onto everything but in the last few years they’ve disappointed me – maybe that’s just where football is now. Every club that has won a trophy believes they have a right to win all the time.”
He was talking to Paul Merson, who is not exactly known for being pro-Arsenal nowadays, and he goes even further and reckons we are going to come down with a bump very soon. “Sooner or later they will be on the end of a big score – defensively they are all over the place,” Merson said.
“The one thing that gets them out of trouble is that they’re always going to score goals. But defensively, they are just not good enough.”
He does have a point, as we discussed earlier about how even Fulham had over 20 shots on our goal on Sunday.
It would appear that Emery is in the “we’ll score more than you” camp, but I’m hoping he will come up with different tactics when we come up against any of the teams above us. We know our defence is dodgy, but will it be our undoing in the end? Will we get that thrashing one day when we face a top team?
Darren N